RI survives elimination round

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian female archers Hamdiah, Dahliana and Nurfitriyana survived the Olympic Games elimination round at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta on Sunday.

After the round, which sorted out 64 archers for the main draw, Hamdiah ranks 25th with 639 points, Dahliana 51st with 615 points and Nurfitriyana 55th with 600 points.

The next knockout round on Aug. 2 pits the first-ranked against the 64th-ranked, the second-ranked against the 63rd- ranked and so on in order to halve the 64. The subsequent rounds repeat this format to obtain two finalists.

By such drawing, Hamdiah will take on 40th-ranked Severine Bonal of France, Dahliana will face 14th-ranked Giovanna Aldegani of Italy and Nurfitriyana will play 10th-ranked Anna Mozhar of Kazakhstan.

Also on Aug. 2, the Indonesians will face the Ukrainian trio in the team events. Nurfitriyana joined forces with Kusumawardhani and Lilies Handayani to win the women's team silver medal in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Indonesian team manager Mohammad Dahlan said his archers had been improving technically, especially because Stone Mountain Park was very similar to the Senayan archery field in Jakarta in terms of weather, wind readings and other physical conditions.

However, he added that the trio need better mental preparations because the New Olympic Record format, the first ever used in the Olympics, involves the archers in tense face-to- face duels. (arf)